, to die
upon the scaffold is happiness in comparison."

"I dared not think it," murmured Madame Graslin.

She had turned as white as wax. To hide her face she laid her forehead
on the balustrade, and kept it there several minutes. Farrabesche did
not know whether he ought to go or remain.

Madame Graslin raised her head at last, looked at Farrabesche with an
almost majestic air, and said, to his amazement, in a voice that stirred
his heart:--

"Thank you, my friend. But," she added, after a pause, "where did you
find courage to live and suffer?"

"Ah! madame, Monsieur Bonnet put a treasure within my soul! and for that
I love him better than all else on earth."

"Better than Catherine?" said Madame Graslin, smiling with a sort of
bitterness.

"Almost as well, madame."

"How did he do it?"

"Madame, the words and the voice of that man conquered me. Catherine
brought him to that hole in the ground I showed you on the common; he
had come fearlessly alone. He was, he said, the new rector of Montegnac;
I was his parishioner, he loved me; he knew I was only misguided, not
lost; he did not intend to betray me, but to save me; in short, he said
many such things that stirred my soul to its depths. That man, madame,
commands you to do right with as much force as those who tell you to
do wrong. It was he who told me, poor dear man, that Catherine was
a mother, and that I was dooming two beings to shame and desertion.
'Well,' I said to him, 'they are like me; I have no future.' He answered
that I had a future, two bad futures, before me--one in another world,
one in this world--if I persisted in not changing my way of life. In
this world, I should die on the scaffold. If I were captured my defence
would be impossible. On the contrary, if I took advantage of the
leniency of the new government toward all crimes traceable to the
conscription, if I delivered myself up, he believed he could save my
life; he would engage a good lawyer, who would get me off with ten years
at the galleys. Then Monsieur Bonnet talked to me of the other life.
Catherine wept like the Magdalen--See, madame," said Farrabesche,
holding out his right arm, "her face was in that hand, and I felt it wet
with tears. She implored me to live. Monsieur Bonnet promised to secure
me, when I had served my sentence, a peaceful life here with my child,
and to protect me against affront. He catechised me as he would a little
child. After three such visits at night